Basket – A Multi-Purpose Note Pad For KDE

Basket Note Pads is a multipurpose note-taking application for KDE. Business people can use it to keep track of important tasks and notes. Writers can use it to organize their thoughts. Students can use it for note taking. And generally anyone can use it as a virtual paste bin or clip drawer.

Basket was one of the last KDE 3 programs to be ported to KDE 4. While the development appeared to have stalled for some time, it has picked up again, and the developers have released a beta version for KDE 4.

Installation

You can download the source code from the project’s website or install your Linux distribution’s version, if available. Kubuntu/Ubuntu users can install it from the Universe repository.

Search for “basket” using your package management software or install from the command line with:

sudoapt-get install basket

Features

There are four types of baskets: one column, two column, three column, and free, the last of which allows you to post notes without any ordered structure.

The fastest way to create a new basket is to press Ctrl+N, select the basket type, and then give it a name.

Once you have a basket created, click your mouse pointer on the basket window section, and it will automatically create a first note. When typing notes, you do not have to save them. Basket uses an immediate write-to-file system that stores the basket notes as soon as you type them.

You can tag a note by clicking the arrow to the left of it. A menu will come up with several options, including a to-do checkbox, a progress bar, Important, Funny, and more. You can also choose to create a new tag. To help you organize further, you can assign an icon to each basket and note.

It is easy to copy and paste to and from baskets, and you can also add images, links, colors (especially helpful for graphic and web designers), screen shots, and application launchers.

One particularly useful feature is the ability to export an entire basket as an HTML file. You can also export all of the baskets, and it will automatically create a website with functional links to all of them.

Basket Note Pads can be linked with external applications, such as a text editor, image editor, and media player. Like all KDE applications, shortcuts are fully customizable, and all drag and drop functionality should work, even with most non-KDE applications.

The “filter” function allows you to find a note in a basket containing particular words or phrases. This is especially helpful for large baskets with numerous general notes. It begins to filter as you type, picking up partial matches if you are not exactly sure what text is in a note.

With the “group” button, you can organize notes in a hierarchy. You can then collapse a group of notes by clicking the arrow to the left of the primary note.

By default, Basket docks itself in the system tray when closed. This gives you easy access to your notes whenever you need them.

Basket Note Pads can import notes from other Basket archives, KNotes, KJots, KnowIt, TuxCards, Sticky Notes, and Tomboy. You can also import notes directly from a text file.

Current Release

The current version of Basket (2.0) is still in beta, so some functions, like password protection, do not function correctly. Aside from a few bugs, however, it is fully functional and very useful for productivity and organization. Basket Note Pads is free and open source software, released under the GNU GPL.

Basket is indeed a very, very nice tool. One quibble with the story: Basket isn't “for” KDE (implying it only works if you use a KDE workspace, e.g. Plasma Desktop, or is in some other way entangled with a larger set of KDE apps). It's built on KDE technology and is a KDE Application. It is, however, for anyone who wants a great note taker / unstructured information organizer.